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Grace Ballinger, the Blaze’s left-arm pacer, looks ahead to the Women’s Twenty20 Blast final at The Oval on Friday.
The summer of 2026 is already a huge one for English cricket.
Fans across the country have been reeling, often divided, from mid-match international retirements, women’s T20 World Cup and Test defeats and currently a competitive white-ball series for the men against India.
All the while, domestic cricket continues, sometimes out of the limelight, but this weekend it comes to the fore with the finals of both the men’s and women’s T20 Blast competitions.
The top four women’s teams of 2026 battle it out for silverware at the Oval on Friday, with the men’s finals taking place 24 hours later at Edgbaston.
It is the second women’s finals day since the women’s domestic game went fully professional, and three teams from last year’s two qualifiers (Surrey and The Blaze) will return to the Oval.
There were only three teams on the day of the 2025 finals, with the table-toppers automatically qualifying for the finals. There are four teams this year, mirroring the men’s competition schedule.
In a previous article, I wrote that I thought the nine-team league (compared to 18 counties in the Men’s Blast) reached four teams on finals day, at least one too many.
So I was relieved that The Blaze – my team – finished third instead of fourth!
We play last summer’s champions, Surrey, in the first semi-final, while 2026 table-toppers Hampshire face Durham (who have exited the group stage for the first time) in the afternoon.
The final will then take place that evening at 18:45 BST.
In the men’s competition, the day of the final has moved from September to mid-summer, immediately following the group stages and quarter-finals – a welcome change.
This means that both the women’s and men’s T20 champions will now end before the domestic cricket scene changes.
During the Hundred, women’s (professional) county play takes a break, while for men, the One-Day Cup competition begins.
